The face-off between All Heart and All Star, led by Virat Kohli and Abhishek Bachchan respectively, saw a higher attendance than those seen by professional football ties in India.
The star-studded line-up at the ‘Celebrity Classico’ that was held at the Mumbai Football Arena on a rainy Sunday night garnered humongous attention from folks from the city. The ‘All Heart’ team was led by Indian cricket team skipper Virat Kohli and their opposition ‘All Star’ was led by Abhishek Bachchan. It was a 90-minute football game where Kohli’s men thumped their challengers with a score of 7-3. Ironically, a football match played by the cricket team had a greater turnout with most of the stands filled by people cheering for their favourites, than any game that the Indian Football Team has ever played there.
The last time that the Blue Tigers played here was in a tri-nation series where the other countries were St Kitts & Nevis and Mauritius. Around 4,000 odd people attended the matches with many stands going empty. The Indian team emerged as the winners from in the tournament eventually after winning one match and drawing one. On Sunday, the scenario was completely different. Not only were the stands filled but every touch of the ball by the either Kohli or Dhoni received an electrifying roar from the audience.
The torrential rains were a bit of a worry before the match started but it did not stop the fans in any way. Surprisingly there was another stand that was created for the VIPs to watch the game along with a TV screen, which was missing in the tri-nation cup.
Souter Vaz, secretary of Western India Football Association (WIFA), blamed the “mentality” of Indian fans for choosing entertainment over skill. “When the tri-nation series took place, it hardly had people attending the games. Most of the seats were empty. We called players from MDFA clubs to watch and learn, even they didn’t turn up. You put one celebrity on the pitch and you see thousands of people come running behind them to watch them play. Emerging footballers will never get such privilege,” said an infuriated Vaz.
The match was aired on Star Sports and online streaming app and website Hotsar while most of the I-league games go unaired.
“The crowd only comes to watch icons and the ground was filled with them. I am not surprised to see this response,” said former Indian goalkeeper Henry Menezes.
“It is a learning for us but there is not much that we can do about it. To create an icon, you need a huge budget and we don’t have it. (Sunil) Chhetri and Baichung (Bhutia) are a few footballers who have created a name for themselves with their performances but there are a very few like them in world football,” he said.
Apart from the crowd that gathered in numbers, were other events that follow such glamour. At half-time, popular artist Guru Randhawa came to perform to keep the zeal up, and the music never seemed to stop. For the Indian team, Dhoni scored a brace, Kedar tapped one in after Kohli’s shot was saved by the ’keeper and later the skipper scored a goal with a sublime finish to light the crowd up. The All Heart team received two penalty kicks after the players were fouled, which were successfully converted by Shikhar Dhawan and Aniruddha Srikkant respectively. The All Star team didn’t do much but a screamer from Ranbir Kapoor was awarded as the goal of the night.
